Health is a perpetual conversation.
You don’t get to your healthiest self and stop.
You don’t get your blood sugars or blood pressure in target range and stop.
You don’t lose excess weight that’s contributing to health issues and stop.
It’s. Never. Going. To. End. At least not while we are still here. Death and taxes and all that stuff…
Whoa, whoa, whoa. DO NOT get all sad on me. Hello, human. Instead, you should be like, Yas, queen.
What if you started thinking about managing your health like getting a haircut or mowing the lawn? Or maybe grocery shopping or getting your nails done. You know, things that happen regularly. You don’t get one haircut and think, “YES, finally! Done with this hair.” Health is like that. You have to keep doing it. That’s the thing about “dieting”. It has a beginning and an end. That’s not how it works.
#Spoileralert
We have to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom. We have to stretch our mental and physical muscles. We have to do these things daily. It’s not like this is new information.
It’s how we think about it that can be new.
Aren’t you tired of the same old, same old, anyway? Many diets over the years have similar qualities with a few new twists thrown in. Scare tactics about specific foods and/or other nonsensical overgeneralizations are soooo yesterday. #boo #blahblahblah
What if I told you that it was a simple, yes, maybe even boring, truth?
What if boring isn’t boring at all?
Make a plan. Grocery shop with intent. Eat smaller portions. Waste less food. Learn to cook. Get up off the couch. Tell your buddies no to that additional glass of wine. Yes to variety. Yes to eating from all food groups (unless you are allergic, of course). Yes to getting up every day and starting fresh. Yes to humanizing your routine.
It’s actually pretty easy to say yes to saying no to stuff we know isn’t going to take us where we want to go. We don’t have to be perfect. We just need to start doing something. The first step can – and should be – small. Say “yes” to a vegetable, or “no thanks” to a dessert that isn’t your favorite or if you are full. Maybe next time. It’s not like you are giving it up, you are just paying attention to what you really want.
Maybe today is the day you will try something else. You probably already have a few things that would be easy (and different!) for you to do. You just need to give it a spin.
All gifs in this post are from giphy.com and all still images are from pixabay.com
Kim Kirchherr 